


Reputation

by Anonymous



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: 80s AU, Alcohol, Bottom Xeph/Top Sips bc duh, Gambling, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Random OCs - Freeform, excessive flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 15:09:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17286377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Such hazy light obscuring his features, Sips doesn’t recognize the man at first. And then the poor bartender - in her nervous shifting about - steps aside from a row of lights she had been blocking, and Sips very suddenly does recognize the man.“Gin on the rocks, please,” Lewis Xephos says coolly, swipes his palm to the countertop, and traipses his fingers away to reveal five, crisp hundred dollar bills. “At least show them you’re worth it,” he continues, indicating the obscene pile of cash. “No point in sucking up to some small fry, right?”





	Reputation

**Author's Note:**

> A oneshot scene from an AU I've been blessedly invited to collab on. Dw the creator gave me permission to post. Enjoy shitlords.

It’s a difficult endeavor, starting new in a city like this, and with less than a million to his name where the fat cats throw as much away in a week, really he’s just biding time on the temperament of whoever will believe his bold shtick until the company can hold its own. But that’s for the future, and the ‘ _now_ ’ of the city promises more than enough to tide him over, so he sees no harm in indulging it, can’t find fault in enjoying the lavish establishments with their equally lecherous clientele, the ravenous glances cast his way, the slurred evenings as alcohol and sex swirl into a cocktail of vague regret the next morning.

 

He’s always been wary of gold diggers, but the tail in this town seems content enough with confidence, provided he plays a convincing part in all the excessive opulence. A week on, and he’s mastered the disguise, able to stride his way into any and every club, hotel, and bar and leave at waning hours with at least one fawning man or woman clutching his arm. A month on, and he’s beginning to believe his own ruse.

 

Of the many viper pits he visits, one he finds himself drawn to again and again: The Red Shift Bar and Casino. Aptly named, its scarlet soaked atmosphere intoxicates him from the very first night he makes a cool $15,000 at poker and proceeds to lose several hundred of that treating strangers to rounds. Thereafter, every evening provides fresh, new twenty-somethings scantily clad and equally lacking of inhibition - not that he ever takes advantage, but he’d be an idiot to refuse each pair of legs flaunted to suggest exactly how they’re going to fall open for him. Supply and demand, this town, and he knows what he wants.

 

Thus he falls into a comfortable rhythm of crafted falsities, reaps reward after reward, and, slowly, murmurs pass from mouth to mouth, boasting his prowess, bolstering his name.

 

Reputation. It’s the only way to survive the rat race, and he’ll earn his place among the top dogs yet.

 

All his world staged, then, it’s a mere waiting game - his vantage point The Red Shift - and his evenings pass the same: cards and shots, the blurring faces of whatever company he picks up, the wet heat of bodies and groans and release, the aloof departures and lost phone numbers, afterwards. It’s a game, certainly, until a chance encounter turns everything on its head, and finally the stakes expose themselves.

 

A hot, dull April Thursday, and Sips doesn’t actually mean to go out - has a conference call in the morning that could make or break a crucial investment - but his nerves sat restless all day, and by five o’clock, the idea of staying in appeals as much as the spreadsheets he failed to fill out.

 

“Jesus, I’ll get ‘em done tomorrow,” he sighs when his secretary, George, asks after the paperwork.

 

“It’s just important we have these accounts in order before - ”

 

“Kid,” he says, and rounds back to George’s desk, pressing his palms to the edge and leaning forward. “I’ll get it done, okay? Appreciate the concern, but d’you really think I’d let everything tank on some bullshit like this?”

 

“Ah - um, no, sir,” George stutters. “Apologies, Mr. Lovasz.”

 

Sips grins - wider still when George flushes red. He’s cute, not quite Sips’ type - and he’s not stupid enough to risk a harassment suit - but definitely cute, and Sips enjoys flustering him.

 

“No problem, kid. And hey, do me a favor and get the hell out tonight or something. Look like y’haven’t seen a whiskey in weeks.”

 

“I - um - I…”

 

With a wink, Sips turns on his heel and leaves George to his confusion, feels eyes follow him to the elevator, and he straightens his posture, squares his shoulders, rubs his neck with a languid sigh. No harm in giving the kid a little show.

 

The company car delivers him to his apartment without ceremony, idles outside while he changes into a better cut suit - charcoal jacket and trousers with a white button up - and after ensuring at least three condoms on his person and a daub of cologne at his collar, he heads out, purpose in his gait and tone of voice as he instructs the driver to The Red Shift. They arrive nearing 6 o’clock - rush hour has yet to distinguish an all important CEO from the underling employees crawling home from nine to fives - but the bar doesn’t open for another two hours, so Sips contents himself to a few menial losses at the card tables. His favorite dealer, Marina, is on at Blackjack, their’s a strangely budding friendship, strengthened further when she inevitably kicks his ass with perfect, successive 21’s. Each time, he accuses her of cutting or counting, and each time she tosses the deck across the felt just to prove how damn clean her hands are.

 

“So when’re you gonna let me buy you a drink, sweetheart?” He teases after five straight folds.

 

“You couldn’t afford it,” she shoots back, deftly fanning the deck in preparation of a sixth round.

 

“Not if you go easy on me.”

 

Fixing an unwavering glare, Marina gathers the cards back, splits the deck, and shuffles them together in a flawless Faro.

 

“I’ll make y’a deal, then” Sips says, jumping his gaze from hers, to the cards, and back up. They’re both keenly aware of each other’s preferences, and he does often feel bad goading at her when other less discerning creeps can’t take a hint, but it is so awfully fun sometimes.

 

“If I win this next hand,” he says. “I’m buying.”

 

“And if you lose?” Marina challenges.

 

“Then you get my money, _duh_.”

 

“That’s not a bet.”

 

“Says who?”

 

“The goddamn house?”

 

Sips laughs and Marina cracks a smile.

 

“Fine,” she says. “You’re on,” and Sips gracefully accepts defeat when she decimates his pair of tens.

 

“Well, that’s me for now,” he sighs, pushing away from the table, his pockets empty save the wad of bills stuffed in his wallet for drinks. The evening crowd has begun to filter in, and he prefers the casino early on when it’s only him and a few oldies at the slots. The bar opens in twenty minutes, anyway, and he’s eager to scout the options.

 

“I’m off about eight,” Marina says, setting up for the patrons now cloistering around her table.

 

“One drink,” Sips says.

 

“Manhattan,” Marina replies. “No bitters, six cherries. Have it ready for me.”

 

“ _Six_?”

 

“You heard me.”

 

“Kay there, sweet tooth, sure.”

 

“No bitters!” She calls after him as he saunters from the table.

 

“Got it!” He waves over his shoulder, but by the time he makes his way to the bar and lounge, proper, he’s forgotten her request entirely.

 

Similarly, he has forgotten what night the bar is hosting, though this is less in part of his general indifference, and more due to the fact he has not been in town long enough to experience the salacious immodesty that is Red Night. He’s heard of it, certainly, seen advertisements, and its name slides from the tongues of every seasoned patron he’s held conversation with. Red Night… it even _feels_ filthy, and a sweet tremor tickles up his spine as he joins the crowd already filling up the bar and lounge.

 

No especial decoration embellishes, but a cloud of implication suffuses the milling throng, turns the air thick and heavy, weights eyelids to a half droop, lolls heads sidelong, pulls air slow and long from heaving chests. Amidst it all, Sips feels utterly displaced, unused to this seeming mass hysteria, and his dress does not help matters. Ruby and scarlet and crimson abound, and his usually dashing dark grey stands him out like a corpse to all these bloodied bodies.

 

Slightly overwhelmed, he pushes through the smiles and pouts, touches and recoils, arms and legs and breath and stupor, to a blessedly clear table in a far corner of the lounge, throws himself into its cushioned booth along the wall, and kneads the heels of his palms at his temples. He remains sat there until a low beat of bass and synthesizer thrums from speakers set in the ceiling. A delighted murmur lulls next from the crowd as lights flick on behind the bar counter, illuminating its stained glass alcohol, and they move as one to the bartenders now stationed like sentinels.

 

Sips has never seen a night so busy, and he’s content to wait for the worst of it to disperse before attempting drinks of his own. In so doing, and having neglected Marina’s drink, he’s taken by surprise when she sidles up to his table, no longer clad in the tacky uniform of the tables, instead boasting her curves in a cherry sequin romper that throws the low light off her person in a bejeweled shower.

 

“So where’s my Manhattan?” She asks, taking the seat across from him.

 

“You see that mess?” He nods at the bar. “I ain’t going up there yet.”

 

“Then it’s two for making me wait.”

 

Sips stares at her for a long moment, but a smile shatters the facade.

 

“Lucky you’re hot,” he says.

 

“Three if you keep that shit up.”

 

“Can you even handle that much?”

 

Marina waves a dismissive hand, revealing inch long press on nails adorning all but her index and middle fingers.

 

“Besides the point,” she says, glances over her shoulder, then back at Sips. “Alright it’s clearing up. Get.”

 

“Scout some ass for you?”

 

“Four,” she answers, and Sips laughs.

 

“Christ, okay, sorry for tryna get you laid.”

 

“Cuz I totally need help,” she says as he extricates himself from the booth and smooths the few wrinkles in his trousers. He takes a moment to grin down at her.

 

“Christ, _fine_ ,” she sighs. “See if there’s any good white chicks. Blondes.”

 

“Sure thing,” he says, gives a thumbs up, then strides for the bar, procuring a hundred from his wallet.

 

The crowd has thinned considerably, various groups cluttered here and there, some dancing to the indistinct music, most chatting away, all clutching drinks like lifelines in their self made sea of pulse and desire. There’s still much of a line at the bar, so he observes lazily about as he waits. He comes up short on white blondes affable to Marina’s tastes, and moves onto brunettes; there’s a tall one he wouldn’t half mind, but she’s latched onto some prick’s elbow, and Sips is not a homewrecker - at least not with the immediate threat of a jealous partner. The night is young, though, and he prefers to hunt after a few shots, so he shakes off the whispers and fleeting looks and focuses on the task at hand - that being getting Marina exactly what she ordered.

 

“Four Manhattans, no bitters, and six cherries each,” he tells the bartender, a fresh face he’s not seen before, and she blinks at his inane request, jumping as he slaps a hundred down on the counter. “Rest’a that for tip, sweetheart.”

 

Sans reply, she nabs the bill, spins around, and pulls down their best bottle of rye whiskey, her hands a flurry of quick, timed motions that produce four identical fruit laden cocktails.

 

“Fuck me,” Sips says by way of a compliment. “How old’re you, kid. You in college?”

 

She takes a step back from the counter, nodding cautiously.

 

“Hey I’m not tryna be weird,” he reassures. “Just impressed. Here -” and from his wallet he fishes another fifty.

 

“Indulge them like that,” a voice to his right interrupts, “and they’ll never learn proper work ethic.”

 

Turning to stare down whoever has gall enough to confront him, Sips scoffs, “The fuck’s it to you how I spend my money?”

 

Such hazy light obscuring his features, Sips doesn’t recognize the man at first. And then the poor bartender - in her nervous shifting about - steps aside from a row of lights she had been blocking, and Sips very suddenly _does_ recognize the man.

 

“Gin on the rocks, please,” Lewis Xephos says coolly, swipes his palm to the counter top, and traipses his fingers away to reveal five, crisp hundred dollar bills. “At least show them you’re worth it,” he continues, indicating the obscene pile of cash. “No point in sucking up to some small fry, right?”

 

He turns to the bartender who has made no effort to retrieve the money or prepare the drink, and he chuckles.

 

“New here?” He asks.

 

“You’ll get used to it, friend,” he smiles when she does not reply, and, gathering the bills, reaches across the counter and stuffs them into the front pocket of her apron.

 

“Now I believe I ordered something -”

 

In a span of thirty seconds, she grabs a new bottle of Bombay Sapphire and pours a double shot. The second she sets down the glass, she bolts to the other end of the bar, busying herself with a rowdy couple that can’t possibly be more fun than six hundred dollars on two orders.

 

“Thank you!” Lewis calls down the bar, raising his glass in her direction. She does not so much as turn her head.

 

“See?” He says, returning his attention to Sips and his glass to his smirking lips. “Ungrateful leeches.”

 

 _No,_ Sips wants to say. _I think you just scared the shit out of her, you self righteous bastard_.

 

But that’s not how you address one of the most powerful CEO’s in the whole goddamn country, so he says nothing at all and attempts an unfazed veneer. It’s next to an impossible feat, though, Lewis exuding unshakable confidence as he sits there and eyes Sips over. It helps matters very little he’s someone Sips often likens to “a hot piece of ass”, dark eyes glinting blue behind his glasses, hair coiffed neatly save a few errant strands falling across his forehead. Daring to avert his gaze down, Sips sucks a sharp inhale at the demure little ensemble the man has put together: a skin tight, dropped neckline gown shimmering navy with a slit baring half his thigh entirely, heels strapped up to his mid calf, and a smug sneer to prove he knows exactly what he’s doing looking like this.

 

“You’re new here, too, aren’t you, friend,” he says. “But I’ve heard around about you. Sipsco, right? But then that’s not _all_ I’ve heard.”

 

“Yeah?” Sips counters. “What _have_ you heard, big guy.”

 

“Enough,” Lewis answers plainly, swirling the drink in his hand. The clink of ice tickles the air around them. “But not that you’ve a pining for whiskey soaked cherries,” he adds, nodding at the four Manhattans.

 

“They’re for a friend,” Sips says, knowing full well he doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone, but he’s not about to back down, even to the likes of Lewis.

 

“Ah, my mistake. Where is he, then?”

 

“Why you assuming they’re a he?”

 

“Gossip rarely holds up, Mr. Lovasz,” Lewis says. “But you look the part of yours. It’s just conjecture.”

 

“You’re one to talk,” Sips scoffs, and Lewis raises an eyebrow.

 

It’s poorly put on, and Sips sees right through it. Everyone and their brother knows the company Lewis Xephos likes to keep. Hell, the short time he’s been in town, Sips has heard word of mouth from no less than twenty men their trysts with the CEO, some far more detailed than was necessary, but now it provides Sips the foundation he needs to stand his ground. There’s no real vitriol to it, of course - Sips could care less who fucks who - but he’s not about to let the man who’s allegedly sucked off half the city shame him for promiscuity.

 

“What exactly are you suggesting, Mr. Lovasz,” Lewis sighs, setting his drink down, though his fingertips remain at the rim, tracing the glass. It is rather very distracting.

 

Still, Sips confidence does not waver, and with a flash of his best smile and a wink, replies, “Whatever you want, big guy.”

 

With that, he gathers the four Manhattans, and hastens from the bar back to his table and an impatient Marina, leaving Lewis to parse what the hell just happened - a technique he reserves for stubborn catches, and one that always reels them in.

 

“What in the christ took you so long,” Marina asks, snatching two of the precarious drinks from Sips’ hands.

 

“Just had a little run in with someone,” Sips says. “No biggie.”

 

“Sounds like bullshit, you gonna ditch me early or something?”

 

“Get off my dick, it’s not even nine.”

 

Marina pantomimes a toast before throwing back her entire glass. “Fair enough,” she grimaces.

 

“That supposed to impress me?” Sips deadpans.

 

“Did it?” Marina counters hoarsely, popping a cherry into her mouth, stem and all.

 

“No.”

 

“H’bout thisth,” she says, and seconds later grabs Sips’ hand and spits the cherry stem into his palm, revealing tied at its center a neat little knot.

 

“And that’s not all this tongue can do,” she adds with a purr.

 

“Save it for the lezzies,” Sips says, and Marina laughs into her second Manhattan.

 

They chatter on for some moments, discussing nothing of importance or real relevance, and it isn’t until Marina forces her way through her last drink that she points out Sips is still completely dry.

 

“I run you broke or something?” She teases, and Sips chooses not to point out how long it’s taking her to blink.

 

“I told you,” he says. “Had a run in with some douche. Waiting for him to clear off.”

 

“Oh yeah? Who, Sipsy, who could _possibly_ get under your skin.”

 

“Try Xephos, babe.”

 

Marina gawks. “You’re shitting me.”

 

“Nope,” Sips answers, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

 

“You’re tryna fuckin’ get with - with _him_?” Marina says, and devolves into an uproar of squeaking giggles.

 

“Je _sus_ I think my dog can hear you,” Sips winces.

 

“You have a dog?”

 

“No.”

 

“Bastard.”

 

“Anyway,” Sips sighs, and leans forward to speak at a lower volume, though the music and din of surrounding conversation provides ample distortion anyway. “I’m gonna need you to calm the hell down, because I’m kinda going for the whole coy thing right now, and you’re gonna fuck this all up for me. And if that happens, I’m gonna tell every broad in this place you’ve got syphilis, alright?”

 

“Ssss _ounds_ fair,” Marina hiccups.

 

“Good. Now, watch and wait, sister.”

 

With that, Sips settles into his chair, prepared for the long haul and more than happy to endure it, but doubts Lewis’s composure all the same. Sure enough - and soon enough - a member of the waitstaff weaves his way through the crowd to the table, carrying a tray containing a single glass of golden alcohol. He delivers the drink with a flourish and a message.

 

“From Mr. Suggesting,” he informs.

 

“Anything else?” Sips asks, the waiter making to leave.

 

“He seems to think, no, Mr. Lovasz,” the waiter replies, and Marina jeers after him as he struts away to the bar.

 

“Fuckin’ Eli,” she sniffs. “Why’s he always gotta be such a fuckin’ prick like that.”

 

“Not sure it was just him,” Sips says, sipping at the drink. It proves the smoothest cognac he’s ever tasted, blooms his blood hot at his wrists and neck, and he undoes the top buttons at his collar quite without realizing.

 

“So this ‘Mr. Suggesting’,” Marina muses. “That Xephos, yeah?”

 

“Let’s fuckin’ hope, sweetheart,” Sips chuckles. “Else I’m drinking on another asshole’s twenty.”

 

“That be a problem?”

 

“Not really, but -”

 

“But you want that rich bitch Yoglabs dick, huh?”

 

Sips stares at his friend for a long moment, comes to the conclusion she’s perfectly capable on her own, and replies, “Marina? Get outta my face for a bit, babe.”

 

“Aww m’I cramping your style, Sipsy?”

 

“Well I ain’t getting that dick with you hanging around.”

 

Throwing her hands up in defeat, Marina concedes, “Ffffffair enough,” and teeters to her feet.

 

“Ohhhh, heels were a _baaaad_ idea,” she sing songs, and Sips almost regrets leaving her to her compromised devices, but she spies a cute little miss thing at the far end of the room - announcing as much very loudly to Sips - and flounces away before he can change his mind, flaunting her mile long legs like she’s laid out her own catwalk.

 

Sips watches until she disappears into the surrounding bodies thriving on their red, the last sight of her a glint from her heels, recalling Sips to another pair he’s been keen on this evening, a smooth leg caressed in their indecent straps, the flash of thigh, clever eyes watching Sips watch back. It bolts through his spine a lance of heat and shiver and _intent_ , and he downs the last of the cognac, abandons the glass and his table, and shoulders his way to the bar.

 

It seems Lewis has made no attempt to move, though his gin has evidently been refilled, fresh ice clicking as the he takes an innocent sip. He doesn’t so much as glance in Sips’ direction, which is well and fine, because Sips hasn’t caved just yet, either. Similarly ignoring Lewis, he instead flags the attention of the poor, harassed bartender from earlier, and she reluctantly approaches the pair, eyes flicking to and from either man, her posture stanced to flee.

 

“Yeah, hey, kid, sorry about before,” Sips says. “But I had a drink sent to me and was wondering if I could get a refund.”

 

The bartender blinks a few rapid times before grappling for a response. “I’m - oh - I’m sorry sir, I - I don’t think I can - ”

 

“Only twenty bucks, kid,” Sips presses, fighting back a grin as he senses Lewis agitate beside him. “Pretty sure the bastard can’t afford losing that. I’d foot it myself, but I don’t like mingling with that type, y’know? Don’t want em getting the wrong idea, better to give em back what they wasted.”

 

“I - I - I don’t know…” the bartender stammers, and Sips makes a mental note to find her on a night he’s not trying to fuck the world’s worst CEO and offer to pay her tuition. Or something to that extent. He’ll workshop it later. For now, he has a plan, and she better take the hint.

 

“I’m not lying to you, kid. You can check your receipts. Eli or whatever, he brought it, check with him.”

 

A palpable annoyance now radiates from Lewis; it singes Sips’ pulse.

 

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” the bartender mutters, her innocent confusion collapsing. “Just take it, _here_ ,” and she digs into her apron pocket, procures a crumpled twenty, and thrusts it at him.

 

“Now leave me _alone_ ,” she hisses through gritted teeth, stalking off down the bar.

 

 _Perfect_ , Sips delights to himself. _Fucking perfect_ , and grabs the money, sneering at Lewis as he finally deigns to grant his attention.

 

“Mr. Suggesting, eh?” He says, and Lewis glowers.

 

“What the _fuck_ was that all about,” he demands.

 

“You don’t gotta impress me,” Sips says coolly. “Cognac or not, you wanna fuck, just say, big guy.”

 

“Excuse me -?” Lewis begins, but his tirade flounders to a stifled gasp as Sips abruptly seizes his bared knee, rakes his fingertips up Lewis’s thigh, beneath the split seam of the dress, only halting at the hem of his undergarments where brushes the coarse tease of lace.

 

“You heard me,” Sips growls, leaning in far too close, enough to smell the pine of Lewis’s aftershave. “So figure it out,” he instructs, and deftly tucks the bill into the band of Lewis’s panties, tracing his thumbnail to the skin beneath as he does.

 

Affording no window of opportunity, Sips curtly pulls away and saunters from the bar, heart hammering through his ribs. Either he’s provided enough evidence to get booked on assault, or he’s ensured a _very_ good time with a world class slut.

 

Somehow, the latter possibility worsens his nerves, but he dons his own facade masterfully, lounging again at his table of choice and watching the crowd around with indistinct focus. Red permeates, sight and sound, a seductive, eddying flow and in its wake the gasps and whimpers and sighs of the yet to be sated. And he is hungry - _starved_ for it. Carnal clings to his and every other person, and they will devour each other by night’s end.

 

“Come with me.”

 

The words float from reach, so Sips follows them to coherence. Stood in front of him, proffering his loss at the game, is Lewis, poised and ravenous where defeat shows - at his flitting eyes, his hands clenched to fists, stiff jaw permitting only sparse words through full lips.

 

“Right here?” Sips goads, quirking an eyebrow. “You sure?”

 

“ _Now_ ,” Lewis demands, his patience visibly withering, and Sips is on his feet in an instant, cheeky grin turned up to full.

 

Grabbing his hand, Lewis leads him wordlessly through the scarlet and elbows and laughter to a deserted hallway where the lounge spills over into the lobby and on into the casino. It’s quiet here, a crossroads of the monetarily emaciated and bodily famished, and the only sound that issues is the silk swish of Lewis’s dress, the ‘ _sthink’_ of his heels on the carpet. Tempted by his ever prolific one-liners, Sips makes to quip at Lewis’s audacity, and, especially, his apparent knowledge of some secluded corner to steal away for a good time. The chance, however, expires, Lewis halting them outside a nondescript door near the end of the hall, and Sips watches - confounded and infinitely curious - as he tests the handle, finds it unlocked, and opens it.

 

“Guess you’d know all the best places - _whoa,_ Jesus!”

 

Lewis’s diminutive frame impedes nothing of his suddenly grasping Sips by the lapels and quite literally hauling him into the room, a room Sips recognizes - seconds before the door closes and snuffs most of the light from the hallway - as one for storage, though this is apparently empty of all but a broom. That, too, is wiped from his immediate concern, Lewis wasting no time in meeting their mouths in a mess of tongues as he shoves Sips against the door.

 

Sips recovers within seconds, his shock ebbing to the waves of furious heat roiling between their bodies, and he pins Lewis to himself by the small of his silk clad back, kneads his knuckles there, presses just shy of painful.

 

“Harder,” Lewis mutters against his lips, and Sips readily obliges, carving his nails from tailbone to nape, surely leaving marks where Lewis’s shoulder blades jut exposed from the draperies of his dress.

 

“S’it part-a your foreplay to fuck with guys like this, then?” He asks, laving the query down Lewis’s neck,

 

“Does it matter?” Lewis retorts, hissing a sharp inhale as Sips secures a fistful of his hair and yanks to afford better access beneath his chin.

 

“S’pose not,” Sips answers back, then pauses to plant a bruise over Lewis’s trachea. “Just like to know what kinda crazy I’m up against.”

 

“Consider it mutual,” Lewis says, and he lets go where he’d been weakly pinioning Sips’ shoulders and wanders his hands between them, fumbling at Sips’ belt.

 

“Whoa, hey, wait up there, big guy. Th’hell you mean?”

 

In the dark of the room, Sips watches Lewis’s head fall silhouetted to one side, and he distinctly envisions the smirk that must accompany it.

 

“Just that I’ve done my research, Mr. Lovasz,” comes the answer. It is far too honest for this darkness, but Sips will not surrender to words alone.

 

“You find out I built myself up from nothing, then?” He growls, seizing Lewis’s waist and digging his thumbs into his hips. “You know the years I’ve put into my company? All the shit I put up with? I _know_ what you are, _Mr. Xephos_ , but I don’t think you know a goddamn thing about me.”

 

Silence dithers between them, startled only by distant inhales, shaking exhales.

 

“I want to,” Lewis says at last, and their shared shadow shudders.

 

Sips does not reply, but loosens the grip of his right hand, ventures it tentatively downward. He stares blindly forward, but their eyes must be met.

 

“I want you to show me,” Lewis breathes, and Sips carefully lifts the seam of the dress’s slit, slides his fingers under.

 

“ _Make_ me know.”

 

Further conversation falters on a whimper, a staggered gasp, as Sips strokes the heel of his hand between Lewis’s thighs and feels his body respond in warm twitches beneath the panties. The heat grows, as do Lewis’s groans, and Sips swallows every one with fervent kisses.

 

“You’re really fuckin’ loud you know that?” He says, and Lewis smiles into another kiss.

 

“Think we’ve a lot to learn about each other, yet,” he replies, and Sips snorts.

 

“That was really fuckin’ cheesy.”

 

“Mhm…” Lewis hums.

 

Sans any indication, he pulls away and sinks suddenly to the floor, palms racing down Sips’ chest, thighs, shins, and back up again, pausing at his belt.

 

“Maybe you should shut me up, then.”

 

It’s ridiculous - absolutely unfathomably cringey - but what is Sips to do? Deny the rush of sweetness that addles his every nerve having Lewis Xephos knelt at his feet? Deny Lewis _goddamn_ Xephos from sucking him off in some storage closet on Red Night at the most renowned club in the city? Talk about reputation… he’ll have theirs both in the bag come morning.

 

Denying further thought - lest he overdue it and regret anything - he takes Lewis’s face in his left hand, rests his chin in his palm, and with his right works slowly, diligently, at his belt.

 

“Think I will,” he says, and allows Lewis the last initiative so he can retrieve a condom from his pocket.

 

Lewis takes it without comment, and a quiet crinkle spoils the silence as he, presumably, secures it between his teeth - both his hands now working the belt free and Sips’ trousers open, and it’s a damn shame the lack of lighting, really, a shame Sips can’t enjoy the sight of such a powerful man brought to heel. And so graciously, at that.

 

“That makeup smear-proof?” He jokes, composure flagging as Lewis takes him in hand and strokes lazily.

 

“Hardly,” Lewis answers, and Sips doubly curses his inability to see, Lewis apparently much closer than he realized as the word breathes wet against him.

 

He tries to little avail not to lose himself in the sensations of it all, but Lewis is proving a worthy opponent. His fingers are slender and cold, his palm warm, and there’s a suggestion of callouses that feel fucking amazing. A flick of Lewis’s thumb at the head of his cock and Sips decides it’s easily the best handjob he’s ever had.

 

“ _Christ_ ,” he groans, and there’s no reply from Lewis but, god, Sips _knows_ he’s smirking, knows he’s assuming some upperhand in this as he fits the condom on and administers a few, chaste licks, tentative but too practiced to be anything so naive.

 

“Swear to fuck if you keep teasing like that…” Sips warns, anchoring brutal fingers against Lewis’s scalp, and there’s a satisfying groan in response, but his victory is short lived.

 

“ _H-holy shit_ ,” Sips moans as Lewis, his jaw gone impossibly slack, presses his nose to Sips’ naval, the bastard swallowing his cock without so much as a warning breath.

 

For several, impossible seconds, Lewis does not move, though his throat tightens around Sips’ cock, and still he makes no sound when finally he pulls away, ensuring to press his tongue and curl his lips against his teeth so no inch of Sips is left untouched.

 

“You’re fucking filthy,” Sips gasps, hoarse and desperate, and he spares Lewis no reprieve, forcing him forward again, groaning and cursing and knowing nothing beyond the heat of Lewis’s mouth, the prowess of his tongue and throat, the delicious reality that Lewis is _letting_ himself be used like this - that he _wants_ to be.

 

Amidst their combined haste, Sips nudges his shoe between Lewis’s legs, and a strained laugh escapes him as Lewis - his hands shaking - presses it flat to the floor and rolls his hips forward to instead savor the solidity of Sips’ leg.

 

“N-need some help there, big guy?” Sips teases as Lewis begins to neglect with his tongue’s attention.

 

“Sorry,” Lewis mutters, voice scratched in rasps. He’s breathing quite heavily, too, and selfish though he may be, Sips knows when it’s time to reciprocate. No point in wrecking Lewis completely before they’ve had some real fun.

 

“C’mon,” he says, and helps Lewis to his feet, embracing him by way of support, as well is the added friction lovely, too. Lewis agrees as much, not in words, but his hips thrust against Sips’ in a desperate rhythm as they kiss, his fingers trembling to undo the buttons of Sips’ shirt, his tongue panting against Sips’ skin when at last he exposes it.

 

It is so unlike anything Sips had expected of this - of Lewis and his submission, his veritable docility. Sips intends to give him everything in this, but had never conceived of receiving so much. The stories he’d heard painted a petulant man who needed to learn his place, who had to be forced to many times, and was somehow complicit - even deserving - in that. Here and now, as Lewis whimpers with each chaste touch, laughs sweetly when Sips responds in kind, offers himself so boldly yet _still_ maintains restraint, Sips concludes what had been so obvious from the start, from the second they laid eyes on one another and decided their game was one worth losing to the other.

 

“They never had you, did they.”

 

“W-what,” Lewis mumbles, his face buried in Sips’ neck, and Sips rests a soothing palm to stay his shuddering hips, strokes Lewis’s cheek with his other hand.

 

“Them,” he repeats. “All of them. The assholes that’ve said all that gross shit about you.”

 

“S-so what if they did or didn’t?” Lewis counters, leaning away, and Sips so wishes they could see one another.

 

“If you’re just going to lecture me -”

 

“Jesus,” Sips sighs. “Don’t flatter yourself, Xephos. Just thought you might like to know there’s one guy out there who’s not gonna go notching your name on some fake bedpost.”

 

An unsteady pause and then, soft and small, “...Oh.”

 

“I get why you do it, why you don’t stop the rumors,” Sips explains, searching out Lewis’s glasses, removing them, tucking them into his breast pocket. “No shame in it, seriously. Just glad I don’t gotta be one of those pricks.

 

“Of course, I can’t exactly _lie_ if someone asks about it,” he continues, stroking his hands from Lewis’s waist to his thighs, back up again, down and down and _in_...

 

“So should probably get my story straight.”

 

The groan Lewis gives, as Sips guides his panties to mid thigh, trembles in his throat. Sips’ mouth - so dutifully chasing the taste of Lewis’s stammering pulse - tingles with its vibrations, and he administers a soft string of bruises around Lewis’s collar before sighing in his ear, “You alright?”

 

Lewis whimpers, falling against Sips’ chest as he teases between his legs.

 

“Yes,” he manages. “Yes, _yes_ , ple _ase_ m-more.”

 

This, Sips did not expect; they’ve begged before, his partners - that’s just how damn good he is - but from Lewis, it feels unto a sort of worship. It’s a terrible thing for his ego, and he relishes it.

 

“You really gotta be more specific,” he says, working his fingers in delicate strokes he knows to be viciously unsatisfying. “I’m a bit slow on the uptake, y’see.”

 

“H-have me,” Lewis breathes without hesitation. “Whatever you said. I don’t care. Have me, take me - _ah_ \- p-please ju-ust fuck me.”

 

He’d already decided - back in the bar - formal removal of Lewis’s undergarments would waste too much time; the proposed alternative was similarly too aggressive save for the right circumstances. This moment, those words, the depths of Lewis’s voice… Sips decides it all very much the right moment, and, grasping the band of the panties where it stretches thin, he tears them clean apart, the sound of shredding fabric a melody to the beat of their combined moans.

 

“ _Christ_ ,” Lewis exhales as Sips lifts him, turns him round, and slams his back to the door, pinning him mid air, and in an instant, his long legs wrap vicelike around Sips’ waist.

 

“Didn’t bring any lube,” Sips mutters.

 

“I don’t _care_ ,” Lewis hisses, and this close - face to face - Sips can see faintly as the man shoves three of his fingers into his mouth, sucking at them with delicious, slick sounds before reaching down to stroke Sips and coat the condom. And well, at least that came pre-lubed.

 

“Filthy,” Sips admonishes. “Fucking filthy.”

 

“Fuck me,” is Lewis’s only response, and at last Sips obliges, staying Lewis’s hand and shifting his hips to a better angle.

 

He pushes in slowly, so very achingly slow, but still Lewis stifles his cries, and Sips fears he’s in real pain until their bodies are once more flush, and time lapses for them to luxuriate in the sensation.

 

“Move,” Lewis eventually orders. “Please, _christ_ , m-move.”

 

Leveraging his hands under Lewis’s thighs, Sips rolls his hips back, carefully forward, searching the man’s limits.

 

“Oh, _f-fuck_ ,” Lewis whimpers, nails biting through Sips’s suit jacket as he clings to his shoulders.

 

“That - _hah_ \- good?” Sips breathes, the answer irrelevant, but he adores hearing it anyway, and Lewis proves most obedient.

 

“Harder,” he moans. “ _Christ_ , harder.”

 

Sips similarly obeys, thrusting faster, shifting his hold of Lewis’s thighs as momentum threatens to topple them both.

 

“You feel so _fuckin’_ good, you know that?” He pants, barely able to finish his sentence before Lewis kisses him, yielding his mouth to Sips’ tongue and curses.

 

“You’re so good," Lewis gasps. " _S_ _o good_.”

 

How many times Sips has heard this, chanted from the mouths of so many nameless faces, yet Lewis sighs it in a reverence to rival every man and woman Sips has had.

 

“I want you,” he says, before the words spoil, before this all returns to nothing. “I _want_ you.”

 

“You have me,” Lewis answers, keening as Sips drives into his quaking body harder and harder and _harder_ . “You have me, you have _me-ahhh God,_ y-yes, Sips, Sips, _Sips, God yes there there ahhh-hahhhhh…_ ”

 

A blaze overtakes them, a rush of strangled cries and snapping nerves and flooding pleasure that ravages the last vestiges of their reluctance, its tremulous resolve crumbling in the surge of climax, washed away in the shocks of the after and its warmth, its flittering of overstimulation, the gentleness of two bodies met coming apart for the hundredth time tonight. Though this time carries a more necessary permanence; metaphor operates only so far as wild abandon allows.

 

So, cautiously, Sips lets go Lewis’s legs, providing support as the man struggles to stand, and soothing with his hands wherever they can reach.

 

“That up to your standards, big guy?” He says when breath returns to him.

 

“You… ripped off my underwear,” Lewis replies, and Sips devolves into a mess of laughter.

 

“Shit, I did, didn’t I,” he laughs. “Fuck I’m sorry. I’ll pay for ‘em if -”

 

“I could care _less_ about the cost,” Lewis interrupts. “But I can’t bloody well walk back in there pantsless, can I?”

 

Sips schools a growing smile, glad for the darkness that hides his amusement. “Don’t think anyone’ll notice, or care.”

 

“Oh they will,” Lewis assures. “And then they’ll talk and -”

 

“That’s not the kind you want going around?”

 

“Not especially,” Lewis gripes, and Sips rolls his eyes.

 

“If it’s such a damn big deal…” he says, and kneels down to retrieve the ruined panties.

 

In so doing, an image flashes from the haze of the past twenty minutes, that of the garment dangling from Lewis’s leg as he was held in place, for how else would it still be around his ankle? Next time, Sips decides, they’ll do this somewhere properly lit, so he can see Lewis sprawled for him, torn panties and all.

 

For now, he contents himself with tying the frayed ends together, before letting Lewis hastily pull the crudely assembled item back on.

 

“This is ridiculous,” he says.

 

“Better than nothing,” Sips points out, similarly assuming his own decency - tossing the condom behind himself for whatever unlucky cleaning crew to find later.

 

“We’ve at least three more hours here,” Lewis continues. “ _Minimum_.”

 

Sips scoffs, “Says who?” and leans in for a kiss.

 

“Hey, hold on there, friend,” Lewis says, pushing Sips away who frowns but makes no other advances.

 

“Says who, big guy,” he repeats. “Why we gotta hang around this place all night. I sure as hell don’t wanna.”

 

Lewis does not answer, instead turns to open the door, not fully but enough to let spill in a blinding slice of light from the hallway.

 

“You really need to brush up on your social etiquette,” he whispers, peeking out before giving an all clear and slipping surreptitiously into the hall.

 

Sips follows, bemused and sensing the start of another game, and quite enjoying the sight of what he’s done to Lewis now he can properly admire it: the watercolor bruises peering in blooms on his neck and shoulders, the untamable tangle of his hair, the immovable flush at his cheeks. Where his thigh shows through the dress, half a handprint stands visible. He’s the most goddamn beautiful mess Sips has ever seen, and his blood fills with fire all over again.

 

“What if I don’t want to?” He contests. “What if, say, I wanna take you back t'mine and fuck you senseless? Gotta penthouse in the west end. Right up your bougie alley, big guy.”

 

“You’re insatiable,” Lewis says, looking positively scandalized.

 

“Nah, just insufferable,” Sips grins, striding forward, and this time he does not grant another option, seizes Lewis in the swift embrace of his arms and tongue, kissing him deeply until his lungs ache for air.

 

“Jesus christ,” Lewis pants, leaning his forehead to Sips’ chest when they break the kiss. “What are they going to say about us.”

 

Lifting Lewis’s chin so their gazes meet, Sips says, “Whatever you want ‘em to.”

 

Lewis laughs, a quick huff of a sound, and shakes his head.

 

“They had fucking better,” he replies.

**Author's Note:**

> Didn't quite wanna put this in the notes at the beginning in case it deterred readers but I'm highkey disgusted with the nsfw that's inundated the feed as of late, which is why I posted this. Not to be petty, but I am and some people really gotta get their priorities straight and figure out what good, healthy, non violently fetishistic porn really is. js


End file.
